David McKean (born 29 December 1963)
Career
Comics
McKean first showed his work to editors at
Marvel Comics,
DC Comics, and Continuity Comics when visiting New York City in 1986. There, he met Neil Gaiman and the pair collaborated on the graphic novel
Violent Cases, which was published in 1987.
This was followed in 1988 by a
Black Orchid miniseries
and
Hellblazer covers for DC Comics.
[Irvine "John Constantine Hellblazer" in Dougall, pp. 102–111]
In 1989, McKean illustrated the Batman graphic novel, , with writer Grant Morrison.[Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 240: "Written by Grant Morrison, with painted artwork by Dave McKean, Batman: Arkham Asylum was an innovative and complex examination of Batman's Rogues Gallery."] The book was a commercial success, selling over 260,000 copies in hardcover and paperback.[Manning "1980s" in Dolan, p. 238: " The Sandman saw a variety of artists grace its pages...Illustrator Dave McKean's mixed media pieces garnished each cover."]
Between 1990 and 1996, McKean wrote and drew the ten issues of Cages, a graphic novel about artists and creativity.
McKean's collections of short comics Pictures That Tick, and Pictures That Tick 2: Exhibition
McKean created a wordless erotic graphic novel called Celluloid
Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash, which was commissioned by the 14-18 Now Foundation, The Imperial War Museum and The Lakes International Comic art Festival, was published in October 2016 by Dark Horse Comics as an oversized hardback and regular paperback.
Raptor was released in 2021 by Dark Horse Books
Illustration
McKean designed the posters for the Raindance Film Festival
for five consecutive years between 1996 and 2000. In 1997 he wrote, directed and edited a ninety-second trailer for the festival. In 2005, McKean designed the poster for the 32nd Telluride Film Festival. In 2006, he designed projections, sets and directed film clips for the Broadway musical
Lestat.
McKean has also released picture books that include pictures from his trips. Examples include Postcards from Vienna, Postcards from Barcelona, Postcards from Paris (2008), Postcards from Brussels (2009), Postcards from Perugia (2011), Postcards from Bilbao (2012). He created another book of 200 pages called Squink (éditions BdArtist(e)) that gathered a number of drawings in 15 chapters.
Album and book covers
McKean has created album covers for many artists, including
Counting Crows,
Alice Cooper, Testament, Altan,
Tori Amos, Download,
Fear Factory, Front Line Assembly, Paradise Lost,
Dream Theater, Stabbing Westward,
Skinny Puppy,
,
Toad the Wet Sprocket, Steve Walsh, and
Delerium.
Bill Bruford's Earthworks commissioned McKean artworks for six of their albums from 1994 to 2004, as well as additional images for the 2019 Complete box set.
McKean has also made book covers for Jonathan Carroll, Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore.
Books of photography
McKean has published five books of photography:
-
A Small Book of Black and White Lies (1995)
-
Option: Click (1998)
-
The Particle Tarot: The Major Arcana (2000)
-
The Particle Tarot: The Minor Arcana (2006)
-
Prompt: Conversations with Artificial Intelligence (2022)
Work with John Cale
McKean designed and illustrated
John Cale's autobiography
What's Welsh for Zen, a further biography called
Sedition and Alchemy, a box set of C.D.s called
Circus Live, and used John's Welsh-by-way-of-New York voice as the narrator for his short film
Neon.
Children's picture books
McKean has collaborated with
Neil Gaiman on four children's
,
The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1998),
The Wolves in the Walls (2003),
Crazy Hair (2009), and
MirrorMask (2005), and illustrated Gaiman's children's novels
Coraline (2002) and
The Graveyard Book (2008), as well as S. F. Said's
Varjak Paw (2003),
Outlaw Varjak Paw (2006),
Phoenix (2013) and Tyger (2022).
The Wolves in the Walls: a Musical Pandemonium premiered as a play in
Glasgow in 2006 with Improbable and the National Theatre of Scotland. The National Theatre of Scotland adapted
The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish into a promenade performance for young people in 2013. He illustrated
David Almond's
The Savage published in April 2008,
Slog's Dad published in September 2010, and
Mouse Bird Snake Wolf (2013). In 2011, McKean collaborated with
Richard Dawkins on
The Magic of Reality, an introduction to critical thinking and science for children.
McKean also illustrated
Ray Bradbury's
The Homecoming (2006).
The Fat Duck Cookbook
In 2008, McKean collaborated with Heston Blumenthal on
The Fat Duck Cookbook, an autobiography, compilation of key recipes and insight into Blumenthal's scientific method. The book was nominated in the James Beard Foundation Awards for Cooking from a Professional Point of View and won the Photography/Illustration award. In 2014, McKean collaborated again with Blumenthal and writer Pascal Clariss on Historical Heston, a collection of historically inspired recipes. The book won two James Beard Foundation Awards. McKean is the Director of Story at The Fat Duck, and helped to relaunch the restaurant after its refurbishment in 2015. He has created package designs, maps, menu designs and murals for The Fat Duck, as well as Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in London and Melbourne.
Stamps
McKean created six images for the
Royal Mail's
Mythical Creatures collection, which featured depictions of mythical creatures found in British folklore, including
,
, giants,
,
, and
Fairy. The collection was released in the UK on 16 June 2009. The Presentation Pack contains short descriptions of each subject by author Neil Gaiman.
Films
MirrorMask, McKean's first feature film as director, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005. The screenplay was written by Neil Gaiman, from a story by Gaiman and McKean. A children's fantasy which combines live action and digital animation,
MirrorMask was produced by Jim Henson Studios and stars a British cast Stephanie Leonidas,
Jason Barry,
Rob Brydon, and
Gina McKee. Before
MirrorMask, McKean directed a number of television intros and music videos as well as several short films, such as
The Week Before (1998) and
Neon (2002),
which are included in the compilation DVD of McKean's work
Keanoshow from Allen Spiegel Fine Arts. McKean directed
The Gospel of Us, a film of the National Theatre Wales's
Passion play in
Port Talbot which stars
Michael Sheen.
The feature film
Luna,
written and directed by McKean and starring Stephanie Leonidas, Ben Daniels, Dervla Kirwan and Michael Maloney, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2014.
McKean was a on the TV mini-series Neverwhere (1996), which was created and co-written by Neil Gaiman, and the feature films Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).
Theatre and live performance
McKean wrote and performed a song cycle called
Nine Lives at the Sydney Opera House as part of the Graphic Festival. This was also performed at the
British Library and at LICAF.
McKean wrote the text for Wildworks' Wolf's Child
An Ape's Progress
Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash
Music and jazz label
McKean has produced
Album cover for many bands, such as: Paradise Lost, Machine Head, Testament,
Fear Factory,
Counting Crows,
Dream Theater,
Michael Nyman. He has a longstanding relationship with
Industrial music band Front Line Assembly, creating many illustrations for dozens of their albums from 1994 to
Mechanical Soul. McKean also founded the record label Feral Records with saxophonist Iain Ballamy.
Video games
McKean created the cover art for
Synnergist, a point-and-click adventure game released in 1996, the only video game he has made art for.
Awards
McKean has won numerous awards and accolades. Over the years, he has been nominated five times for a World Fantasy Award in the category of "Artist", and he won the award in 1991.
His graphic novel
Cages won the Alph-Art, Pantera, and
for best Graphic Novel.
He has been nominated six times and won three Spectrum Awards in the categories of "Advertising", "Book", and "Comic".
His collection of short comics,
Pictures That Tick won the V&A Museum Illustrated Book Awards Overall First Prize.
In 2004, McKean won a
BSFA Award in "Short Fiction" with Neil Gaiman for their work,
The Wolves in the Walls. His film
MirrorMask was nominated for the
William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie, the other nominated films were
Green Street Hooligans,
Nine Lives,
Up for Grabs and
Opie Gets Laid.
won Best British Feature at the Raindance Festival Awards,
and also the Raindance Award at the Möet British Independent Film Awards.
In 2017 McKean was the inaugural recipient of the "Sergio Aragones International Award for Excellence in Comic Art", given as part of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival.
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